Shinran
Shonin
Shinran Shonin (1173-1262) was born at the close of the Heian
period, when political power was passing from the imperial court
into the hands of warrior clans. It was during this era when the
old order was crumbling, however, that Japanese Buddhism, which had
been declining into formalism for several centuries, underwent
intense renewal, giving birth to new paths to enlightenment and
spreading to every level of society.
Shinran was born into the aristocratic Hino family, a branch of the
Fujiwara clan, and his father, Arinori, at one time served at
court. At the age of nine, however, Shinran entered the Tendai
temple on Mt. Hiei, where he spent twenty years in monastic life.
From the familiarity with Buddhist writings apparent in his later
works, it is clear that he exerted great effort in his studies
during this period. He probably also performed such practices as
continuous recitation of the nembutsu for prolonged periods.
Conversion
After twenty years, however, he despaired of ever attaining
awakening through such discipline and study; he was also
discouraged by the deep corruption that pervaded the mountain
monastery. Years earlier, Honen Shonin (1133-1212) had descended
Mt. Hiei and begun teaching a radically new understanding of
religious practice, declaring that all self-generated efforts
toward enlightenment were tainted by attachments and therefore
meaningless. Instead of such practice, one should simply say the
nembutsu, not as a contemplative exercise or means of gaining
merit, but by way of wholly entrusting oneself to Amida's Vow to
bring all beings to enlightenment.
When he was twenty-nine, Shinran undertook a long retreat at
Rokkakudo temple in Kyoto to determine his future course. At dawn
on the ninety-fifth day, Prince Shotoku appeared to him in a dream.
Shinran took this as a sign that he should seek out Honen, and went
to hear his teaching daily for a hundred days. He then abandoned
his former Tendai practices and joined Honen's movement.
Exile
At this time, however, the established temples were growing jealous
of Honen, and in 1207 they succeeded in gaining a government ban on
his nembutsu teaching. Several followers were executed, and Honen
and others, including Shinran, were banished from the
capital.
Shinran was stripped of his priesthood, given a layman's name, and
exiled to Echigo (Niigata) on the Japan Sea coast. About this time,
he married Eshinni and began raising a family. He declared himself
"neither monk nor layman." Though incapable of fulfilling monastic
discipline or good works, precisely because of this, he was grasped
by Amida's compassionate activity. He therefore chose for himself
the name Gutoku, "foolish/shaven," indicating the futility of
attachment to one's own intellect and goodness.
He was pardoned after five years, but decided not to return to
Kyoto. Instead, in 1214, at the age of forty-two, he made his way
into the Kanto region, where he spread the nembutsu teaching for
twenty years, building a large movement among the peasants and
lower samurai.
Return to Kyoto
Then, in his sixties, Shinran began a new life, returning to Kyoto
to devote his final three decades to writing. He did not give
sermons or teach disciples, but lived with relatives, supported by
gifts from his followers in the Kanto area. After his wife returned
to Echigo to oversee property there, he was tended by his youngest
daughter, Kakushinni.
It is from this period that most of his writings stem. He completed
his major work, popularly known as Kyogyoshinsho, and composed
hundreds of hymns in which he rendered the Chinese scriptures
accessible to ordinary people. At this time, problems in
understanding the teaching arose among his followers in the Kanto
area, and he wrote numerous letters and commentaries seeking to
resolve them.
There were people who asserted that one should strive to say the
nembutsu as often as possible, and others who insisted that true
entrusting was manifested in saying the nembutsu only once, leaving
all else to Amida. Shinran rejected both sides as human contrivance
based on attachment to the nembutsu as one's own good act. Since
genuine nembutsu arises from true entrusting that is Amida's
working in a person, the number of times it is said is
irrelevant.
Further, there were some who claimed that since Amida's Vow was
intended to save people incapable of good, one should feel free to
commit evil. For Shinran, however, emancipation meant freedom not
to do whatever one wished, but freedom from bondage to the claims
of egocentric desires and emotions. He therefore wrote that with
deep trust in Amida's Vow, one came to genuine awareness of one's
own evil.
Near the end of his life, Shinran was forced to disown his eldest
son Zenran, who caused disruptions among the Kanto following by
claiming to have received a secret teaching from Shinran.
Nevertheless, his creative energy continued to his death at ninety,
and his works manifest an increasingly rich, mature, and articulate
vision of human existence that reveals him to be one of Japan's
most profound and original religious thinkers.
(from Nishi Hongwanji English website
http://www2.hongwanji.or.jp/english/shinranshonin.html)[/img]
Sanath's note:
Shinran Shonin's 750th Memorial Services will be held from April
2011 to January 2012 at the Nishi Hongwanji in Kyoto as well as
various Shin temples in Japan and overseas.
